Embracing the Challenge

Today begins week 6 of half marathon training.

Recently Coach Bennett sent me the next two phases of my training plan. Since I was struggling with my runs due to my cranky ITB, I’d held off reviewing the rest of the plan – until yesterday.  I got a good look at the target paces, hill work, weekly mileage – and took a deep breath.  Time to get out of my comfort zone again 🙂

But I’m looking forward to moving into this next phase of training.  I did the things I needed to do to calm my ITB and am back to pain-free miles. So I’ll continue to do the strength work and exercises necessary to hopefully avoid any hiccups moving forward. And it is time to move forward – I’m ready to embrace the challenge.

“Embrace the challenge”  has really become my mantra for this training cycle – I’m going after each workout with enthusiasm and confidence…maybe it’s time to create a new comfort zone!

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Friday Shout Out: ZOOMA’s Personal Best Challenge

You know I’m all about getting out of my comfort zone – when you get out of your comfort zone, there’s a chance for growth and great things to happen.

So when I heard about ZOOMA’s Personal Best Challenge – it was just one more reason to love ZOOMA and I had to give them a shout out!

What is the Personal Best Challenge?

ZOOMA is encouraging women runners to push themselves in 2013 to run a Personal Best – either by taking on a new distance or by pushing your training to the next level to go for that PR. Achieve a Personal Best at one of the ZOOMA races this year and ZOOMA will reward you with a special gift during the post-race party! ZOOMA’s also showing their support along the way by providing training care packages, training plans and tips and sponsoring weekly Twitter chats to keep runners motivated.

When I served as a race ambassador at last year’s Cape Cod race, I met a lot of women running their first half marathon, first 10K…and in some cases, their first race ever – the camaraderie of these races is a great backdrop for first timers! And, from personal experience, I can safely say that hitting a PR on one of ZOOMA’s challenging courses requires you to dig deep! So this idea of encouraging women to push themselves beyond their comfort zone to achieve a personal best seems like perfect fit for ZOOMA!

You can learn more about the Personal Best Challenge at www.zoomarun.com/personalbest  
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13 in 2013

Continuing under the theme of getting out of my comfort zone….

I’m doing the 13 in 2013 Challenge! Yeah, 13 races next year? That should keep it interesting!

Want in? Check out the details HERE!

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6 weeks down, 6 to go

This past weekend I wrapped up the first 6 weeks of my training plan. Some observations so far?

  • I’m learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable! With past training, I have been training within my comfort zone — working hard, but within my comfort level. With the plan Coach Bennett has designed for me, I am definitely stretching — running paces I would have written off as being too much.
  • I shouldn’t underestimate the power of sleep. I have been short-changing myself on sleep and it has been showing up in my workouts of late. I blame my late nights on the Olympics and now that we’ve said goodbye to London, I need to start heading to bed much earlier!
  • More attention needs to be paid to what I’m eating, especially post-run. my recovery, especially after long runs and speed work would benefit from paying more attention here.
  • Pro-active self care in the form of foam roller, consistent yoga practice, and massages have helped to keep me injury free. Some tweakiness in my left knee did cause me to miss one run last week, but rest, icing and KT tape seem to be keeping it in check.
  • After discussing my tweaky knee with my coach on our bi-weekly call, he has urged me to do some of the hamstring and ITB strengthening exercises he sent me; so I’ll be doing those exercises at least 3 times a week going forward.

Over the next 6 week phase, it looks like I’ll be replacing the intervals with hill work to get ready for the rolling hills of ZOOMA Cape Cod and increasing my weekly mileage.

How’s your fall race training going? What have you learned so far?

 

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